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Polo (Sport)
Polo is usually regarded as the king of sports in both Yunjin and Tarigani lands, surpassing any other non-martial arts competition in terms of popularity and presence. It is a team sport, played on horseback (sometimes on camels near the Eled border, but this is mostly viewed as a "joke sport"), where two teams attempt to score goals using a wooden ball that they hit with long mallets. Each player needs 3 to 5 polo ponies for any given game, so that their mount can rest between games, making the initial investment for the sport extremely high, as those horses cannot simply be any old riding beast and need speciality training. Players are usually drawn from the Warrior Caste but the team is financed almost entirely by a higher ranking member of the Warrior Caste if not directly by a family of Sons of Heaven. Some merchants have taken to pooling their money to create Polo stables, but they have yet to join in the larger tournaments in the land. Polo tournaments There are steadily major polo tournaments all throughout both the Gray Expanses and the Endless Shores, with an understanding that Yunjin polo is usually the higher tier one and Tarigani polo is the step below. The sport is played everywhere else, with local tournaments keeping peasants and nobles entertained, but the level of play in the far off regions is usually seen as far lower, except sometimes on the Plains, which has occassionaly created great players. Tournaments are usually maintained by leagues and people have taken to calling those leagues anywhere in the Empire following the Yunjin tradition, with 1st Generation being the lowest ranking league and 9th Generation being the highest ranking one. A team that dominates in their own Generation is often promoted to the higher Generation, where they are thought to be competing on a more equal ground. Tournaments usually take place in the late spring to early autumn months (also known as "Polo season" in the Expanses), with teams being expected to play one or two games a week. The team who have won the most games then go to play in semi-finals and finals, where the winner wins a trophy. Once every few years, the best teams from the Shores and the Expanses meet for a grand tournament to determine the best Polo team in the land, in a competition which takes place in the Imperial Capital. As it is officially "a tournament to see the greatest in the land", teams from other provinces also try to compete but are often eliminated in the preliminary round. The team that ends up winning the tournament usually is granted a large allowance and tours the empire to play in exhibition matches against local teams to promote the sport. Illegal gambling in Polo Of course, such an important sport is the largest target for illegal bookies and gamblers, with the Chivalrous Organizations pulling as many strings as they can to maintain an almost complete monopoly on the matter. Of course, everyone participate in this form of gambling, not only the lower classes, which makes it a well-known illegal activity which is not accepted, but tolerated, by the Magistracy. Polocrosse Military commanders and some more "extreme" polo players have taken to a new sport in the late 19th century, which they nicknamed "Polocrosse", due to the fact it is played with a crosse (some type of stick with a basket on the end) instead of a mallet. Rather than rolling the ball on the ground, the ball is thrown between the players that have to catch it with the crosse. The sport is nowhere near as popular as REAL polo, but it has been catching on in regions where massive polo teams are not as well established. Category:Background Category:Sport Category:Yunjin Category:Tarigani